Srinagar, February 01 (Scoop News) –Condemning the sluggish implementation of Right to information act, the Peoples Democratic Party Saturday lashed out on the govt and said that it is due to institutional incompetence of the present coalition which is slowly rendering RTI as another toothless tiger.
In a statement General secretary PDP, Mohd Dilawar Mir said that manner in which hurdles are deliberately being created to avoid effective RTI implementation apparently points to only conclusion that this Govt and its administration are hell bent on avoiding answers as it fears that “Genie may come out from the bottle.” He said that this govt has even found innovative ways and ideas to circumvent the Act, by either making absurd excuses or make its process tedious.
Dilawar said that right from the beginning the act and its process has been subjected to brazen commercialisation and despite Chief Information Commission’s recommendation and chief minister, Omar Abdullah’s hollow assurance vis-à-vis slashing of RTI application fee and Photostat charges, nothing has been done so far. Dilawar said that creating bottlenecks in RTI process underlines determination of the NC govt to ensure that no institution comes to fore which has the potential to eliminate corruption, irregularities and unaccountability in the govt.
He said that now the media reports on sluggish RTI implementation have also rubbished the tall claims of a govt which, from the last three years, is running on the steroids of tall claims, visits, statistics and rhetoric. Dilawar said that people are losing faith in the govt vis-à-vis RTI, and they want results rather than being bombarded with rhetoric all the time.
Dilawar said that disregarding the act by not furnishing the requisite information and failure to evoke any response to letters of SIC, is a glaring example of how NC led Govt is pushing the act to a permanent impotency. He said that this govt has institutionalised incompetence to the grass roots of a govt where scams and scandals erupt like rashes and with every new scandal, a benchmark, in terms of its nature is established.